The words came to me quickly, without thought—words I’d held onto and kept secret until that moment. “My dad’s not my real dad,” I told him. “I mean, not my biological dad. I don’t know who he is. Dad married my mom when I was five and he’s treated me like his own ever since.” I glanced at him quickly, but he was looking down at his lap. So I focused on the lake, at the ripple of water that seemed to mirror my emotions. “After they got married, Mom took a late shift at a tile factory. She would sleep in the mornings and be gone in the afternoons, so for a long time Dad was the only parent I had. I barely saw her. On weekends she’d be gone hours, sometimes days at a time, and we didn’t know where. So Dad and I got closer while Mom chose to drift away. After a few years, I’d hear them arguing. A lot. I’d hear her yelling at him for not doing enough to support her, for breaking promises to her that he’d take care of us.” I licked my lips, my mouth dry. “She didn’t have the life she expected, but I’d never been so happy. And as the years went by, things got worse. The breaking point was when Mom came home late one night and Dad asked where she’d been. She picked up a chair from the kitchen table and threw it at him. He told her then and there that he wanted a divorce.” I reached out for his hand, and he let me hold it. “I kind of just stood there frozen, my heart sinking because I was losing the only parent who cared about me.” I blinked back the tears, knowing I had no right to carry them. Not that day. “A few months before I moved here… I stood in the driveway, watching him load up his car, leaving the house he owned, a house he offered to my mom and me… and I just stood there crying, not wanting to say goodbye. I couldn’t let go of him when he hugged me… when he promised to keep in touch. I didn’t want him to keep in touch. He was my dad, regardless of what my birth certificate said.” After heaving in a breath, I found the courage to continue. “And I looked at my mom, pleading with my eyes to not let him go, and she just looked at me, not a single ounce of sorry or regret on her face, and said, ‘Make your choice, Lois. Him or me.’ So I got in his car and we drove away. For weeks we stayed in a hotel room, and she never once checked in on me. Sometimes I’d dream of seeing her waiting for me outside of school, just to let me know she was there, that I could go to her.” I swallowed loudly, pushed through. “He gave up everything, the house, the car, all the money he had. And he never once looked at me the way she had—that I’d somehow ruined his life. So now we’re here, and he’s struggling to make ends meet because he wanted to keep the peace. And I know he did that for me so that I didn’t have to deal with her. And I know you don’t want to hear how great your mom was or any other generic speech you may have heard a million times, but your mom was the closest thing I’ve had to one, and I’d give up my mother if it meant that you could see yours just one more time.”

He stared at me, his head slowly moving from side to side, his eyebrows drawn. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.” He kept his hand on mine, the other wiping at my unjustified tears. “My Lois Lane.”

I hugged him so hard I swear I pushed all the air from his lungs. “My Clark Kent.”

It was a few weeks after the funeral—thunder and lightning and huge gusts of wind accompanied the rain, and I lay in bed—deathly afraid of storms. Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me a River the soundtrack of my current life status.

The song suddenly stopped and the room filled with darkness. “Lois?” Dad shouted from upstairs.

“Yeah?”

“The storm must’ve cut off the power.”

“I figured.”

He made his way down the basement stairs and toward me, flashlight in hand. “You okay?”

“How long do you think it’s going to be out for?” I asked.

“Why? You expecting to outweigh the rain with Timberlake’s tears?”

I said nothing.

“That song’s been playing for three days straight, Lo.”

“I like the song.”

“It’s a little depressing.”

There was a knock on the basement door which led to the backyard. The only one who would know to use it would be—“Lucas!” I shouted.

Dad opened the door.

Luke stood just outside, hair soaked, along with the rest of him. His arms were crossed, shivering against the cold. “I’m sorry for coming around so late, sir.” He was in a white t-shirt and running shorts and nothing else. His teeth clanked together as he said, “Laney told me once she was scared of storms… I wanted to make sure she was okay.”

“Does your dad know where you are, son?” Dad asked.

Luke shook his head, droplets of rain falling on his shoulder. “No, sir. My dad doesn’t really know where he is most of the time.” His gaze shifted to me standing behind my dad. I swallowed the knot in my throat, a million emotions hitting me. He looked so sad, so hopeless, so young. Too young to be feeling the way he did.

“Get inside,” Dad said, breaking the silence and pulling on Luke’s arm to get him out of the rain. “Did you run here?”

Luke held my stare. “Yes, sir.”

I finally found my voice, my eyes glazed with tears. “Why are you here?” I breathed out.

He spoke, his voice hoarse. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

I looked at him, disbelief washing through me. He stood there, his skin glistening and his eyes red and raw. “Lucas… Are you okay?”

He stared at me a long time. Then he let out a sob, so quiet I barely heard it. I stepped toward him, my hand going for his. “I hurt, Laney,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

“Where?” I rushed out, searching his body for any sign of injury. After what felt like forever, and finding no blood or broken bones, I looked up at him, and I could instantly tell that the pain he spoke of wasn’t physical. It was so much worse. I wrapped him in my arms, ignoring his wet clothes and my dry ones, and at that moment, we pretended the storm and the darkness drowned out his cries and devoured his pain. His chest rose and fell against mine, his grip on me getting tighter with each passing second. Then he exhaled a shaky breath, his mouth to my ear. “I hurt everywhere.”

My dad made us hot chocolate, and we pretended like we didn’t think we were too old for it. Lucas spoke while Dad and I listened. He told us about how his dad was suffering, lost, and trying to find the answers at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. Luke had seen his dad passed out drunk more times than he’d seen him upright, and Lucy was the one holding it together. Her and the twins’ baseball coach—some boy named Cameron who would later play a huge role in all their lives. The night before, Logan had gone missing. No one noticed until Luke checked in on everyone at around two in the morning. Logan was out in the freezing lake, his pajamas still on. When Luke had found him, Logan simply said, “I wanted to feel something.” They promised each other they would never tell Lucy because she had enough to worry about, and Luke gave Logan the clothes off his back and snuck him back into the house, up the stairs, toward baby Lachlan’s room where Lucy and Leo were awake, attending to a fussing baby. The twins woke, too, and joined them in the nursery. All the kids cried. Together. Apart. But silent, not wanting to wake their dad.